Tag: apple

Apple has been ordered by a German court to stop using part of a press release claiming all iPhones would be available in the country through carriers and resellers, a copy of the ruling seen by Reuters showed. The iPhone maker was banned from selling the iPhone 7 and 8 models in Germany in December following a patent dispute with Qualcomm. Qualcomm on Thursday obtained the preliminary injunction stopping Apple from using a statement that it released to the press in response to the December ruli

Apple has been ordered by a German court to stop using part of a press release claiming all iPhones would be available in the country through carriers and resellers, a copy of the ruling seen by Reuters showed.

The iPhone maker was banned from selling the iPhone 7 and 8 models in Germany in December following a patent dispute with Qualcomm.

Qualcomm on Thursday obtained the preliminary injunction stopping Apple from using a statement that it released to the press in response to the December ruling.

At the time, the iPhone maker said that it would no longer stock the iPhone 7 and 8 at its 15 retail outlets in Germany but those models would remain available to customers through more than 4,300 carriers and resellers across Germany.

“The press release … is misleading as it contains statements that are at least potentially deceptive about the availability of the goods, namely the iPhones affected by the ruling,” a three-judge panel wrote in the latest ruling.

The judges said Apple’s press release gives consumers and retailers the false impression of unlimited availability of the phones.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. Qualcomm said “the order speaks for itself.”

Netflix, Spotify, and Fortnite have all stopped / threatened to stop paying the so-called ‘Apple Tax’ of 15 to 30 percent on App Store revenues.” As sales of the company’s popular smartphone decelerate, Apple management has doubled down on its services unit — which includes the App Store, Apple Music subscriptions, Apple Pay and iCloud storage — as its next revenue generator. Any time a a user buys an iOS app, a digital item within an iOS app (e.g., an ebook) or initiates a subscription within a

Though Apple has trumpeted its services segment as a potential hedge against slowing iPhone sales, one of the top analysts believes the company is facing a growing revolt against the transaction fees it charges for apps.

“While the services segment grew 18 percent in the December quarter, we’ve now started to get investor questions worrying about whether the App Store will be the next shoe to drop,” AB Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi wrote in a note Friday. “Certainly, the headlines in the last few months haven’t been encouraging. Netflix, Spotify, and Fortnite have all stopped / threatened to stop paying the so-called ‘Apple Tax’ of 15 to 30 percent on App Store revenues.”

As sales of the company’s popular smartphone decelerate, Apple management has doubled down on its services unit — which includes the App Store, Apple Music subscriptions, Apple Pay and iCloud storage — as its next revenue generator.

As part of that regular Services revenue, Apple charges between 15 percent and 30 percent of monthly subscriptions for customers who buy software via the iOS App Store, a fee that’s come to be known as the “Apple Tax.” Any time a a user buys an iOS app, a digital item within an iOS app (e.g., an ebook) or initiates a subscription within an iOS app (e.g., a New York Times subscription), Apple takes a 30 percent cut for the first year and 15 percent for all subsequent years.

Such a “tax” poses a significant burden to companies like Netflix and Spotify, which have developed work-arounds to dodge the added fees.

“Unsurprisingly, this 30 percent cut has transformed the App Store into the largest single driver of Apple Services, accounting for about 40 percent of all Services growth in the last three years by our estimates,” added Sacconaghi, a five-star rated analyst on TipRanks, a analyst review service. “In recent years, however, discontent over this ‘Apple tax’ has been brewing among several major iOS app developers.”

Sacconaghi’s stock picks average a 23 percent one-year return, according to TipRanks.com, making him among the best tech analysts. The analyst has a market perform rating on Apple shares, which were up slightly before the opening bell on Friday.

Following music streaming provider Spotify, Netflix has also moved to stop new users from signing up via iOS, first within specific international markets and then globally. That move “is when investor concerns really came to a head,” Sacconaghi wrote, especially since Netflix was widely reported to be the single highest-grossing app within the App Store in 2018.

Apple stock is down more than 13 percent over the past 12 months and down more than 27 percent in the past three. Much of that decline has followed the company’s decision to no longer break out individual sales numbers for the iPhone, iPad and Mac, a statistic analysts and investors for years used as a proxy for Apple’s financial health.

Instead, CEO Tim Cook has placed his bets on the Services business, which reported revenues of $9.98 billion in the fourth quarter.

“When we look at our services business, we think about the fact that we have a very large and growing installed base,” CEO Tim Cook said on the company’s earnings call. “The installed base of all our major product categories is at an all-time high and has been growing over the last several quarters, so the opportunity for us to monetize our services business continues to grow over time.”

Still, Apple is unlikely to be hurt much by the loss of Netflix, which as the company’s single largest developer, represented “less than 0.3 percent of total services revenue” in 2018, according to Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri. What concerns Sacconaghi in the long term, though, is an ongoing lawsuit at the Supreme Court whether the “Apple Tax” meets the definition of a monopoly that has overcharged customers for apps.

While the current case before the high court does not actually address the issue of whether the App Store violates antitrust law (instead, the deliberation is just determining whether the plaintiffs even have the standing to sue in the first place), if the Supreme Court rules against Apple, it means that the actual case “has only just begun,” Sacconaghi wrote.

Apple and Amazon are among eight tech firms named in a complaint filed in Austria by non-profit organization NOYB, which cited their failure to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The action by NOYB, chaired by data privacy activist Max Schrems, also named Netflix, Spotify and Alphabet’s YouTube in the action, after it tested them by requesting private data the companies hold about the user. The GDPR, implemented in May, gives users the right to access the

Apple and Amazon are among eight tech firms named in a complaint filed in Austria by non-profit organization NOYB, which cited their failure to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The action by NOYB, chaired by data privacy activist Max Schrems, also named Netflix, Spotify and Alphabet’s YouTube in the action, after it tested them by requesting private data the companies hold about the user.

“No service fully complied,” NOYB said in its statement.

The GDPR, implemented in May, gives users the right to access their data and information about the sources and recipients of the data. Social networks must regain Europeans’ consent every time they want to use their data in new ways, including for targeted advertising.

The GDPR foresees fines of up to 4 percent of global revenues for companies that break the rules.

NOYB said it filed its complaints with the Austrian authority on behalf of 10 users. The Austrian watchdog would have to work with its counterparts at the streaming services’ main establishments.

“Many services set up automated systems to respond to access requests, but they often don’t even remotely provide the data that every user has a right to,” Schrems said. “This leads to structural violations of users’ rights, as these systems are built to withhold the relevant information.”

Schrems is a veteran privacy campaigner who took his first legal action against Facebook as a student in 2011.

Now a lawyer, Schrems filed complaints last year against Google, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, arguing they were acting illegally by forcing users to accept intrusive terms of service or lose access. Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should implement a new framework that increases transparency around companies that handle user data and lets people track and delete information on them “on demand.” Cook, in a Time magazine op-ed published Wednesday, said the FTC should form what he called a “data-broker clearinghouse,” evoking the image of a financial clearing house used for the exchange of payments, securities and other transactions in markets. “We be

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should implement a new framework that increases transparency around companies that handle user data and lets people track and delete information on them “on demand.”

Cook, in a Time magazine op-ed published Wednesday, said the FTC should form what he called a “data-broker clearinghouse,” evoking the image of a financial clearing house used for the exchange of payments, securities and other transactions in markets.

In the article, Cook says he and others are calling on U.S. Congress to pass “comprehensive federal privacy legislation” that lets consumers minimize the data held on them by firms and gives them the ability to know what personal information is being collected and to delete it.

“We believe the Federal Trade Commission should establish a data-broker clearinghouse, requiring all data brokers to register, enabling consumers to track the transactions that have bundled and sold their data from place to place, and giving users the power to delete their data on demand, freely, easily and online, once and for all,” Cook said in the article.

He added: “Technology has the potential to keep changing the world for the better, but it will never achieve that potential without the full faith and confidence of the people who use it.”

The move follows the Apple boss’ speech in Brussels last year, where he dubbed the business of collecting and selling user data as a “data industrial complex” and said personal information is being “weaponized against us with military efficiency.”

Vic Gundotra has stepped down from his role as CEO of AliveCor for personal reasons, the executive told CNBC. The band tucks neatly into an Apple Watch. But AliveCor recently experienced a “record high in sales,” Gundotra told CNBC, as well as “best month and best quarter” in its history. Gundotra told CNBC in September that Apple raised the profile of atrial fibrillation, which many people had never heard of before the company talked about it on stage. Gundotra joined AliveCor after rising thro

Vic Gundotra has stepped down from his role as CEO of AliveCor for personal reasons, the executive told CNBC.

“I’m leaving the company in a position of strength,” he said.

“We all love Vic,” said David Albert, the company’s founder and chief medical officer. “We sold hundreds of thousands of devices and continue to gain more traction, so all I can say is he did a great job.”

AliveCor is best known for its Kardia watch band, which includes a tiny electrocardiogram (“ECG”) sensor to look for a condition known as atrial fibrillation, a leading cause of strokes. The band tucks neatly into an Apple Watch.

In December, Apple announced it had incorporated its own electrocardiogram into the watch, which many purported would be a big threat to AliveCor. But AliveCor recently experienced a “record high in sales,” Gundotra told CNBC, as well as “best month and best quarter” in its history. Gundotra said revenue doubled each year since 2015, when he joined as CEO.

In September, it announced that it would expand beyond that to new areas that leverage artificial intelligence in medicine, including a new test to diagnose high potassium levels without requiring any blood.

Gundotra told CNBC in September that Apple raised the profile of atrial fibrillation, which many people had never heard of before the company talked about it on stage.

“I’m thrilled,” Gundotra said then. “We have a lot less explaining to do.”

Gundotra joined AliveCor after rising through the ranks of Google where he served as a senior vice president in charge of Google+, the company’s social network, as well as other products.

Gundotra has been public about the fact that his wife is sick with cancer. He will remain on the board, which is expected to announce a replacement from within AliveCor’s ranks in the coming weeks. The company has raised more than $40 million from investors including Qualcomm and the Mayo Clinic.

China’s Xiaomi, once dubbed the “Apple of China,” is in the middle of a months-long rout and facing familiar headwinds in the global smartphone market. The stock has shed 25 percent this year, plummeting to all-time lows and trading below 10 Hong Kong dollars. The company’s market cap now hovers around HK$240 billion ($30 billion). Xiaomi, founded in 2010 in Beijing, rose to impressive market share among global competitors such as Huawei, Samsung and Apple. The company went public on Hong Kong e

Xiaomi, founded in 2010 in Beijing, rose to impressive market share among global competitors such as Huawei, Samsung and Apple. It markets high-quality devices at comparatively lower prices and has more recently diversified its business to include other connected devices and services revenue.

The company went public on Hong Kong exchanges in July at an implied valuation of US$54 billion, but now trades more than 50 percent below all-time highs. The stock has posted only one month of gains since debuting.

Verizon said on Tuesday it will include free Apple Music subscriptions in some of its top-tier U.S. data plans, deepening its ties with the iPhone maker. Apple is increasingly turning for growth to its services segment, which includes businesses such as iCloud storage, Apple Music and the App Store, and has been partnering with rivals in recent months. Verizon customers opting for its “Beyond Unlimited” and “Above Unlimited” plans will also get access to free Apple Music from Jan. 17, the U.S. w

Verizon said on Tuesday it will include free Apple Music subscriptions in some of its top-tier U.S. data plans, deepening its ties with the iPhone maker.

Apple is increasingly turning for growth to its services segment, which includes businesses such as iCloud storage, Apple Music and the App Store, and has been partnering with rivals in recent months. Two weeks ago, it cut its revenue forecast, blaming iPhone sales in China.

Verizon customers opting for its “Beyond Unlimited” and “Above Unlimited” plans will also get access to free Apple Music from Jan. 17, the U.S. wireless carrier said in a statement.

Last year, Verizon and Apple announced a partnership, giving some customers six months of Apple Music streaming service along with their data plan. The Verizon “Go Unlimited” plan will continue to get a six-month free trial of Apple Music.

Apple in the last few months has made its iTunes service available on some of Samsung’s newer smart televisions and has made Apple Music available on Amazon.com Echo smart speakers.

The Cupertino-based firm is facing a saturated global smart phone market and many users are hanging on to their old iPhones longer than ever.

You might currently use your Apple TV to stream music, watch Netflix and rent movies. It’s great for all of those things, but it can also do a lot more. Sometimes you just need to know where to look. By knowing the right settings, the proper Siri commands and a few special apps, you can use your Apple TV for everything from calming down at the end of the day to controlling the lights. Here are some Apple TV tips and tricks to help you get the most out of it.

You might currently use your Apple TV to stream music, watch Netflix and rent movies. It’s great for all of those things, but it can also do a lot more. Sometimes you just need to know where to look. By knowing the right settings, the proper Siri commands and a few special apps, you can use your Apple TV for everything from calming down at the end of the day to controlling the lights. Here are some Apple TV tips and tricks to help you get the most out of it.Apple TV tips and tricks Cached Page below :Company: cnbc, Activity: cnbc, Date: 2019-01-16 Authors: todd haseltonKeywords: news, cnbc, companies, tv, stream, tricks, siri, settings, apple, things, special, tips, watch

You might currently use your Apple TV to stream music, watch Netflix and rent movies.

It’s great for all of those things, but it can also do a lot more. Sometimes you just need to know where to look.

By knowing the right settings, the proper Siri commands and a few special apps, you can use your Apple TV for everything from calming down at the end of the day to controlling the lights.

Here are some Apple TV tips and tricks to help you get the most out of it.

Apple’s former retail chief, Ron Johnson, told CNBC on Wednesday that the tech giant’s stock is still a great bet for investors in the long run. A self-professed Apple “fanboy,” Johnson attributes his confidence to the company’s consumer franchise, leadership, cash balance, and great products. In August, Apple became the first U.S. company to reach $1 trillion in stock market value. Apple’s a great buy.” Leading Apple’s retail division from 2000 to 2011, Johnson designed what’s considered among

Apple’s former retail chief, Ron Johnson, told CNBC on Wednesday that the tech giant’s stock is still a great bet for investors in the long run.

“I can’t imagine a better buy for your portfolio for the next decade,” said Johnson, founder and current CEO of Enjoy, which aims to merge online convenience with personal shopping services for tech products.

A self-professed Apple “fanboy,” Johnson attributes his confidence to the company’s consumer franchise, leadership, cash balance, and great products. He said he owns the stock. “I’m long. I love Apple.”

However, shares of Apple, which has been in the hot seat in recent months due to slowing iPhone sales growth, is down about 12 percent over the past 12 months and off more than 30 percent since its all-time in October. In August, Apple became the first U.S. company to reach $1 trillion in stock market value. Apple’s current market cap is a far cry from that at around $733 billion.

One of the factors that appears to be pressuring iPhone sales is Apple’s battery replacement program. According to a well-connected Apple insider Tuesday, the company replaced 11 million iPhone batteries for $29 each during the length of offer, which started a year ago after user complaints led Apple to admit that it slowed down the performance of older devices. Apple had predicted that it would replace between just 1 million to 2 million batteries.

But Johnson pointed to a silver lining in the results of the battery program. “Those 10 million didn’t upgrade their phone,” he argued. “Next year, they’ll be ready, right? Apple’s a great buy.”

Leading Apple’s retail division from 2000 to 2011, Johnson designed what’s considered among the best retail store strategies in the world. Before Apple, he was a Target executive for 15 years. After Apple, he served as CEO of J.C. Penney for what turned out to be a disastrous 17-months, which saw shoppers reject his radical store and pricing changes and saw investors flee the stock in droves.

Apple replaced 11 million iPhone batteries during the length of its battery replacement program, even though it only expected to replace about 1 million to 2 million of them, according to well-connected Apple insider John Gruber. Apple’s battery replacement program started last January and ran through Dec. 31. It’s one reason why Apple may have missed shipment estimates in its fiscal fourth quarter and why it will ship fewer than expected in the first quarter, Apple said. Cook called out the iPh

Apple replaced 11 million iPhone batteries during the length of its battery replacement program, even though it only expected to replace about 1 million to 2 million of them, according to well-connected Apple insider John Gruber.

Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed the figure during an all-hands meeting that was first reported by Bloomberg.

Apple’s battery replacement program started last January and ran through Dec. 31. It allowed owners of the iPhone 6 and newer models to replace their battery for just $29.

The program was launched after Apple began to slow down the performance of devices that had aging batteries and were more prone to turn off without warning. Battery replacements helped iPhones operate at peak performance again.

It’s one reason why Apple may have missed shipment estimates in its fiscal fourth quarter and why it will ship fewer than expected in the first quarter, Apple said.

On Jan. 2, Apple revised its revenue forecast for its fiscal first quarter. Cook attributed the lower-than-expected iPhone sales and lowered guidance to trade tensions with China and economic weakness.

“In addition, these and other factors resulted in fewer iPhone upgrades than we had anticipated,” Cook explained.

Cook called out the iPhone battery replacement program in the same letter, when he said that “some customers [were] taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.” But, he didn’t mention that Apple had expected about 10 million fewer customers to upgrade their batteries, as Gruber states.